


Two Styles Of Fighting

by stammed_cleams



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast), the adventure zone graduation - Fandom
Genre: Anger Management, Fighting, Sword Fighting, a little fic about what it looks like when fitzroy rages, student and mentour, thought it might be fun
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2021-02-13 13:54:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21495367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stammed_cleams/pseuds/stammed_cleams
Summary: Fitzroy has two styles of fighting. One is restrained, meticulous and patient, the perfect accumulation of everything he'd learned in Clyde Nite's Knight Night school. The other is just something his anger management therapist recommended doing every once in a while.
Relationships: Fitzroy Maplecourt & Jemson
Comments: 10
Kudos: 163





	Two Styles Of Fighting

**Author's Note:**

> hey gang! so i know this is early and i dont normally post little ficlets like this but what can i say! i wanna get on the taz g fanfiction train early! if anybody else writes a lot of taz g work lmk, i am STARVING for content from these wonderful boys!!!

All that Jemson had said about Fitzroy’s style of fighting was “Well, you have excellent form.” He had an odd way of saying it, though, that made it perfectly clear that it wasn’t a compliment. He had smiled at all the other students, Fitzroy knew it, complimented specific moves with the passion of a trained fighter. But when he looked at him he struggled for something to say, biting his lip before finally landing on ‘excellent form’. And he wouldn’t lie to him, his form was excellent. He knew because it had taken work.  
When Fitzroy had first started out at Clyde Nite’s Night Knight school his most common comment was that his form wasn’t nearly tight enough, that he was doing nothing but flailing around bitterly with a sword like some sort of drunken barbarian. It had required a harsh teacher and a lot of patience to get him to where his shoulders were straight, his feet landed in the right place and his parries and swings were all perfectly choreographed. By senior year, he could have been a model for the ideal way the moves and swings should be followed through, every muscle in perfect position, every movement precise. There was some kind of comfort in this style of fighting. When he couldn’t control his magic, or his school life, or his future he could control the way his wrist flicked when he moved his sword, the way his neck twitched when he parried. Perfect control. Sweet, comforting, wonderful control.  
In his first class with Jemson his control in his style was as good as ever. This didn’t change the fact that he lost every sparring match he got into, without fail. He couldn’t react fast enough, he panicked and twitched, he ran out of scripted moves to block the strangely creative attacks that his opponents came up with on the spot. As Jemson passed him he’d been fighting Mimi, whose giant mechanical hands were attacking his middle like he was a toddler being played with. As he said ‘excellent form’ Fitzroy was a second away from falling backwards on his ass, a second away from losing to his fifth opponent. He’d left the class blushing and humiliated, still hearing murmurs from students about his magical outburst during dodgeball just a few days ago.  
That was what had brewed in his mind all day, and that was what was brewing in his mind now, at about twilight while he went out to the training area towards the building that was filled up with lines of training dummies. He took the one that had the number ‘43’ on its wooden head and signed it out at the front desk, which was left attended by an apathetic elf reading a magazine. He carried it under his arm way, far out to the very edge of the training area, close to where the forest began. The night was bitterly cold, the gentle chill of autumn having faded with the sun to a truly merciless frost that ran right through your face and turned your fingers red and numb. Fitzroy knew that in a few minutes, it wouldn’t matter. He set up the dummy in front of himself and took off his nice coat as well as the polite white button up underneath it, leaving nothing but a pair of dress pants and a white tank top he wore underneath his clothes. He gingerly took off his fake glasses and folded them, leaving them atop his meticulously folded jacket and shirt, both of which were touching as little of the dirt as he could manage. And then, taking a breath, he faced the punching bag.  
It wasn’t difficult for him to slip into it today. He did what he usually did, cracking his neck and his wrists, remembering what had angered him throughout the day, and most of all swearing. He’d spent the first half of his life with a sailor’s tongue, and when trying to get his anger under control the first thing he did was strike the language from his vocabulary. This made the words especially potent, and irreversibly connected to pure rage. As always, he started by speaking to it.  
“You really think you can just tell me off like that? I’m Fitzroy fucking Maplecourt! I did not go through my whole fucking life training for my one fucking dream in life just for you to shit all over it!” The last part of his speech was more of a screech than real words. Sometimes it took him paragraphs to get to a place where he planned to attack, but now, after three sentences, he felt he could barely hold himself back. Then he began his other style of fighting - the kind that Night school hadn’t quite managed to completely train out of him. Contrary to the other way he fought, he abandoned all control and allowed some primal part of him to launch at the training dummy, pulling out his sword and hacking away at it like he was using an axe. Each time he swung the sword again it went further into the wood, and soon enough he had grasped it with both hands, wielding it like a warhammer. Teeth gritted, he hacked away at the neck and shoulders, and when he was finished doing that he jumped at it, foot along the flat edge of his sword as he leapt into the air and pinned the dummy down, standing on its neck. Then, his hand still on the hilt of the sword, he pulled outward with unreasonable strength. He crouched down inches from the blank wooden face of the dummy, breathing hard and snarling, before the strength of it gave and from under the chin his sword popped the head off and left it rolling in the grass, with Fitzroy still kneeling on its chest.  
The fact that he had decapitated his dummy took him back out of it, and he felt the power of it starting to leave his veins, panting as he felt immediately weak again. He fell off the side of the dummy, looking at what he’d done. “Oh… oh no…” he said to himself nervously, and then dragged himself to his feet and picked up the dummy’s head. Just as he began to evaluate how and if it went back on he heard a voice from several feet to the left of him.  
“What was that?”  
Fitzroy’s whole body flinched, looking up to see that Jemson was standing there with his hands on his hips, his eyes wide. The color in Fitzroy’s face trained, freezing where he was. That was it. His time here was over. His reputation was ruined. He had no future.  
It occurred to him a moment later that he was waiting for an answer, and frantically, he tried to put together an excuse. “O-oh, um, you’ll - you’ll have to forgive me, I seem to have… the-the heads are supposed to come off… right? Oh, god… that was actually a… new style, I was trying, inspired by air elementals. Very interesting, I’ve read so much about it…”  
Jemson approached, seeming to completely ignore Fitzroy’s babbling. Only then did he notice, as he took the wooden head out of his hands, that he was gently grinning. “You ripped this thing’s head clean off! And by using a thin sword like that for leverage… Fitzroy, you must have incredible strength!”  
“I…” Fitzroy said, falling back and sitting in the grass, trying to process. “I mean, I… not really…”  
“Yes, really,” Jemson persisted, “That was incredible. Why didn’t I see this in class today?”  
“That?” Fitzroy laughed, “Because that - that - that was insane, it wasn’t real fighting.”  
“I would argue otherwise.”  
Fitzroy gave him a shocked look, rising to his feet. Jemson soon followed, leaving the dummy’s head in the grass. Jemson went on talking. “The answer is no, by the way,”  
“To - to what?”  
“The heads don’t come off.”  
Fitzroy swallowed, “Oh - oh no, I’m so sorry, I can, I can get that fixed-”  
“I don’t care about that! My point is, Fitzroy, you’re a very skilled individual. I’d like to see more of these tactics in class, I think it’ll make things far more interesting!”  
Fitzroy went wide eyed at that, laughing anxiously. “Oh, um, no, no I couldn’t do that, no, no thank you.”  
“Why not?”  
“Well um… is this, em… confidential?”  
Jemson creased his eyebrows and nodded. “Of course!”  
“Okay… Well, um, for a few years I’ve been seeing a therapist for um, anger management in Last Hope, and he told me that it would… be a good idea to take out my anger on a dummy! Or something. I’m now beginning to think that wasn’t such a good idea, but I’m… sure I’ll figure something out. But it-it’s just a sort of therapeutic exercise, it absolutely should not be taken as a mark of my true ability-”  
“I would beg to differ!” Jemson insisted, “I’d like you to meet me out here at six o’clock tomorrow. I think, considering the new facts that have come to light, we ought to redo your entrance exam.”  
With that news, he turned around and walked off, leaving Fitzroy feeling very anxious, and somewhat sick.

Nevertheless, the two of them met back up tomorrow, and Fitzroy found that Jemson was already waiting for him when he got there. As soon as he got there, dread built itself up in his stomach. He made no movements to take off his coat, walking up tensely to Jemson, who was just standing up. Jemson was wielding two swords, both of which were nearly taller than him. He grinned as Fitzroy arrived. “Fitzroy! Let us begin.” He raised his swords into a beginning stance. Fitzroy made a frightened noise.  
“No, wait, hold on! I uh…” Fitzroy laughed nervously. His arms were shivering as he took off his coat, deciding to leave on the button up. He took off his glasses, but didn’t fold them or put them down, “I don’t know how good an idea this is, you couldn’t just… take my show from before as a mark of my, um, skill?”  
“That would be unfair to the other students,” Jemson told him reasonably.  
“Well, yes, okay, but… it’s just that I’ve - I’ve never done this in front of another person before and frankly I don’t know if I… can! So we may just have to call it here, you know… use my original… entrance exam.”  
Jemson gave him a serious look. “Put your glasses down, Fitz,” he said harshly.  
“It’s - it’s Sir Fitz- whatever, okay, fine…” grumbling to himself he put his glasses down on top of his folded coat. Jemson, like a bird of prey, began to circle him, and Fitzroy cautiously drew his sword.  
“Your move,” Jemson said, both of his swords pointed inwards at Fitzroy.  
“Um…” Fitzroy muttered nervously. His sword was hanging at his side, unmoving.  
“Come on,” Jemson said with a bitter smile, “You’ve done this before.”  
“I don’t know if this is a good idea, I get - I get pretty crazy.”  
Jemson raised his eyebrows. “You’re afraid that you’ll hurt me?” he said, “A kid like you?”  
“What do you - what do you mean a kid like me?”  
“I mean a preppy little coward.”  
Fitzroy scowled. “Okay I - I see what you’re trying to do here, and I don’t think it’s going to-”  
“What are you waiting for, Fitz?” he asked, “Hit me!”  
He gritted his teeth, beginning to feel it in his veins again. “I really would urge you to recon-”  
“Stop talking, just hit me.”  
“I’m telling you, it’s not a good idea to-”  
“Hit me!”  
“If you would just… just let me finish-”  
“Hit me, Fitzroy!”  
“God, will you shut up?!”  
With that Fitzroy launched forward at an incredible speed. He swung wildly at Jemson, who effectively blocked his every move. This, of course, was infuriating. Sinking deeper into it Fitzroy leapt up into the air, using the sides of Jemson’s swords as steps, leaping up over him and swinging downwards to bury his sword in Jemson’s back, an attack that was blocked, but slightly more narrowly than the attacks before. He backflipped off his shoulders, immediately going for his chest and pushing him backwards, holding his sword in both hands. At one point he was caught in a block, both of Jemson’s swords forming an X beneath his sword, aimed at his chest. Instead of pulling back he persisted, resisting Jemson’s legendary strength as the sound of metal shrieking, rubbing against itself filled the air. For a full three seconds Fitzroy persisted over Jemson towards his sternum, making Jemson’s eyebrows raise before he flipped Fitzroy with a swift move of his swords. Fitzroy landed in the dirt, but quickly he swung around and went for the ankles, a dirty move if ever there was one. Jemson just barely jumped out of the way of it.  
Fitzroy on the ground, Jemson turned him onto his back and straddled him, holding his sword to his neck. “That was very-” he began, but Fitzroy didn’t listen. Ignoring the sword in front of his neck he launched forward, headbutting Jemson. For the first time he cried out and stumbled, taken aback for the first time since the fight began. A thin line of blood was laced along Fitzroy’s neck as he turned the tables, pushing Jemson onto his back and throwing his sword aside, placing his hands around his neck, and squeezing. As he did so, magic boiled up in him and a lightning bolt filed out. Jemson winced, digging his hands into the grass and redirecting the electricity from him back to the ground. With that, he determined he would have to end the lesson sooner or later. After all, blood was dripping onto Fitzroy’s shirt. In a swift movement he pulled Fitzroy’s hands from his neck and got a hold of both of them, spinning him around and twisting his arms.  
“Fitzroy!” he shouted gruffly, struggling to restrain him as he heavily breathed. Fitzroy answered far too loudly.  
“What, what?!” he asked, seeming startled, “Did I do it?!”  
“You did it, you’re done! Come out of it, you’re done, you finished!”  
Fitzroy swallowed, his muscles slowly relaxing as he stopped attempting to pull out of Jemson’s bond. When Jemson let him go he fell weakly forward into the grass, hand quickly going to the rip along his neck that luckily had not pierced anything fatal. He groaned, pulling it away and then seeing a hand drenched in blood, his eyes widened. “Whoa!” he exclaimed, “That is - that is a lot of blood, and it hurts very bad, what did I…” he thought hard, trying to remember his attacks.  
“You don’t remember?”Jemson asked. Fitzroy held up a finger.  
“No, no - give me a second, it'll come back…” he thought for another few moments, the ferocity of his attacks slowly returning to him. His ears sank with embarrassment as he remembered. “Oh,” he said finally, and then brought his hand back up to his neck with a wince, “That wasn’t… that wasn’t very smart of me was it?”  
“Well, it certainly was reckless,” Jemson said, and standing up he offered Fitzroy a hand. Cautiously, he took it, and stumbling he rose to his feet. Oddly enough, ‘reckless’ sounded significantly closer to a compliment than ‘excellent form’. “You’ve got something, Fitzroy. And I don’t say that to everyone. Right now it’s… a bit… unrestrained, which is a little dangerous to the people around you and certainly to yourself,” he said, with a gesture towards his neck, “But in all my years of teaching I’ve never had anybody catch me off guard like that before.”  
Fitzroy raised his eyebrows at that, in disbelief. “You really think I… can use this?” he asked, “Like, there’s some way I can make it… manageable, I can make it into a real way I can fight and not just a sort of… exercise, as I’ve been using it?”  
“Fitzroy, I do not think you can,” Jemson said firmly, “I think you must.” With that he smiled and left Fitzroy deep in thought about the complexities of what exactly that meant, and he patted him roughly on the shoulder and said, “Stop by the healer’s for that cut on your neck. I’ll see you tomorrow, same time, same place.”  
And he turned and walked back towards the school.


End file.
